NYC's Smartphone-Tracking Phone Booths Do Not Mark the Data Privacy Apocalypse

Has The Minority Report hit the Big Apple? A BuzzFeed report published early this morning recounted the discovery of hundreds of so-called “beacons” inside New York City phone booths. The devices, installed by the outdoor advertising firm Titan with blessings from the city’s Department of Information Technology and Communications, were meant to track passing smartphones through the “simple” use of Bluetooth and app technology, allowing marketers to push more relevant advertisements to customers as they march through the shopping playground that is New York. But just hours after the BuzzFeed report appeared online, City Hall had ordered Titan to remove the beacons from phone booths scattered throughout the city—about 500 in all.

A win for data privacy diehards? Perhaps. But Minority Report it ain’t. Unlike much web-based tracking technology, Titan’s collaboration with the telecomm company Gimbal actually forces users to first opt-in to the tracking technology. Tech that allows companies to track your whereabouts and targets advertising based on your location sounds freaky-deaky—but it’s no more freaky-deaky than the tracking technology we encounter on the web every day.